Religious house - Cistercian monks

The National Monuments Service's description

The Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary is located on the N bank of the River Liffey between Capel Street and Arran Street East and is a National Monument (No. 401) in state care. It was founded in 1139 as a daughter house to the Benedictine Order of Savigny in France. In 1147 the Order adopted the Cistercian rule was made subject initially to Combermore (Cheshire)and then in 1156 a charter granted it to Abbot Ranlulf of Buildwas (Shropshire). It became one of the largest and most important medieval monasteries in Ireland (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 131) expanding to its greatest extent of 12,00 hectares, from Dublin and adjacent counties into Westmeath, Galway, Roscommon, Mayo and Cork. The monastic grange or farm of St Mary's, a triangular block of land which has maintained its integrity within the streetscape was bound to the west by the course of the river Bradoge from the abbey green running along Bolton Street, Dorset Street, Drumcondra Hill and Parnell Street, Summerhill and Ballybough in the south well illustrated in Speeds map of 1610 (Stout 2012, 141). All that is obvious now is the chapter house with adjoining passage or slype but and although the abbey's fine masonry was robbed out for various building projects in the general vicinity such as the construction of Essex bridge in 1687 archaeological remains may survive within and below adjacent buildings.
The chapter house is rectangular in plan (L 14.3m, Wth 7.1m) with 4 rib-vaulted bays which spring from corbels and is composed of semi-circular arcs. The ribs are moulded and of Dundry stone from Bristol (Bradley & King 1987, 2, 141-144). The interior was lit by three lancet windows in the E wall (now blocked) and a S window. Excavations in 1886 exposed a stone built coffin underneath the Chapterhouse and fragments of inlaid and incised floor tiles in the area of the S transept (Donnelly 1887, 19). A portion of its cloister arcade was discovered in Cook Street in 1975 during demolition of a 17th century wall. These are stored at St. Audeon's church (Stalley 1987, 131). In the modern Carmelite Friary on White Friar St. is a medieval statue to the Blessed Virgin which apparently belonged originally to St. Mary's Abbey (FMD map (1978), H5). Extensively documented in Clarke (2002, 18-19, B6; Doran, B & L 2009, 188-201).

Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Margaret Keane

Uploaded on: 21 September 2012

Revised on : 01 February 2018

References

Doran, B. and Doran L., 2009 ‘ St Mary's Cistercian abbey, Dublin: a ghost in the alleyways' in Bradley, John, Fletcher Alan, Simms, A. (eds) 2009, Dublin in the medieval world: Studies in honour of Howard B. Clarke, 188-201. Dublin.

Stout, G. 2012 Bective: medieval Cistercian abbey. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2009: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 164-5, No. 637. Dublin, Wordwell

Bradley, J. and King, H.A. 1988 Urban archaeological survey - county Dublin (4 vols.). Unpublished report commissioned by the Office of Public Works, Dublin.

Donnelly, P.J. 1887 Remains of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin: their explorations and researches A.D. 1886. Dublin. Forster.

Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R.N. 1970 (Reprint 1988) Medieval religious houses of Ireland. Dublin. Irish Academic Press.

Clarke, H.B. 1978 Dublin c. 840 - c. 1540: the medieval town in the modern city. Dublin.

Clarke, H.B. (ed.) 2002 Dublin, Part 1, to 1610. Irish Historic Towns Atlas, No. 11. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy.

Stalley, R. 1987 The Cistercian monasteries of Ireland. London and New Haven. Yale University Press.